Time’s up for the Yes2Rail blog, which I launched on June 30, 2008 as a paid consultant on Honolulu's elevated rail project. Yes2Rail’s August 13, 2012 post was its last following the author's move to Sacramento, CA. You’re invited to read four-plus years of information-packed entries, many of which are linked at our “aggregation site.” Look for the paragraph with red copy in the right-hand column, below. Mahalo for all the positive comments Yes2Rail received since its start.

Monday, May 14, 2012

What Does Honolulu Rail Have in Common with The Golden Gate Bridge? Opponents Fought Both Projects with Virtually the Same Arguments

San Francisco without the
Golden Gate Bridge is nearly unthinkable today, yet the project’s supporters in
the early 1930s had to overcome a boisterous opposition that predicted economic
failure and environmental ruin.

With the iconic structure’s
75th anniversary being observed this month, the San Francisco
Chronicle reviewed the anti-bridge arguments in yesterday’s edition with an eye
on another transportation controversy – the California High-Speed Rail project.

It’s also no stretch to find
parallels in the arguments thrown at both the bridge and the Honolulu elevated
rail transit project. The paper reprinted several anti-bridge statements of the
day, and we’ve taken the liberty to make the parallels obvious:

“The present plan for a
[bridge/rail system] across the [Golden Gate/city] is a menace to our
[harbor/community] that should be opposed by everyone who has the interests of
[San Francisco/Honolulu] and its commerce at heart.”

“I do not believe it
probable that the [Golden Gate Bridge/Honolulu rail project] will procure the
majority of traffic that is now going or every will go between [San
Francisco/Honolulu] and [Marine County/Kapolei].”

The paper noted the vehemence
and skepticism in the early 1930s “toward a bridge now taken for granted” and
quoted several of the leading opponents.

“I am in favor of a bridge
across the Golden Gate if it can be physically and feasibly built,” said one
skeptic, adding that while he insisted he wasn’t against the concept of
building a bridge, he couldn’t support this particular concept.

You hear that all the time
among rail opponents, including the local chapter of the American Institute of
Architects. “Don’t misunderstand us,” they say. “We support rail transit – just
not this project.”

Bridge to BART to Rail

Wrote John King in the
Chronicle: “What is striking in retrospect isn’t how wrong the arguments turned
out to be…but how familiar they still sound: We need more data, the details we
do have can’t be trusted, and there are better alternatives.”

Bringing it back home again,
mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano says a bus rapid transit plan he’s borrowing
from the Harris Administration is a better alternative than elevated rail. It’s
hard to know why he thinks that, because he’s refusing to release any details
of the 12-year-old BRT plan, which was never implemented due to severe local
opposition.

The Chronicle’s urban design
critic continued: “Look no further than the ongoing campaign against
California’s high-speed rail system. Before voters approved bonds to help fund
the effort in 2008 (the same year Honolulu voters OK’d the steel-on-steel
charter amendment), opponents depicted it in ballot arguments as a ‘boondoggle’
that would benefit ‘out-of-state special interests.’ Since then they’ve used
the environmental review process and other venues to challenge the financing,
ridership projections and route of the still-evolving plan.

“There were similar objections
to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system before its approval in 1962 by 61 percent
of the voters in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Nine years
later, as opening day approached, critics were more virulent than ever.”

The parallels with Honolulu
rail are obvious. Oahu voters approved creation of the Honolulu Authority for
Rapid Transportation to build and operate the rail project by a 63-percent
majority less than two years ago, yet Mr. Cayetano and his anti-rail cadre say
they know better – without telling us exactly why.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Critic King continued:
“’BART will be especially effective in destroying neighborhoods,’ warned the
weekly Bay Guardian, which also called the system ‘the ultimate money drain.’
But wait, there’s more: ‘It’s designed to handle peak-hour commuter traffic,
which occurs only three hours per day… The other 8,160 hours per year much of
its equipment will lie idle and unproductive.’”

King wrapped up his
retrospective of the anti-bridge campaign by noting that “…the what-ifs and
worst-case scenarios can blind us to the fact that projects of a certain scale
often reshape the landscape in ways we can’t imagine. And sometimes, the
landscape is the better as a result.”

That’s how Honolulu rail’s
supporters see this project – restoring mobility to a community that’s lost it;
reducing travel times and adding the element of predictability that’s
impossible today; providing a rationale way to plan and provide residential and
commercial opportunities around rail stations; ensuring that all income levels
are treated equally (something high-occupancy toll roads can’t possibly do),
and creating thousands of jobs during construction and for decades beyond.

The Chronicle’s King gave
the final word in his story to environmentalist Ansel Adams:

“I remember thousands of
people fought the Golden Gate Bridge. My mother used to think it was ‘just terrible,
ruining the Gate.’ Well, the bridge is up. I personally don’t think it was so
bad. I think it’s a very majestic structure.”

Mr. Adams’ environmentalist
followers in Honolulu may never see “majesty” in Honolulu’s 20-mile elevated rail
infrastructure, but that’s the kind of praise we can imagine future train
riders using as they completely avoid surface-street traffic while gliding
above Oahu's ever-increasing congestion.

There’s another Honolulu rail
parallel with the Golden Gate Bridge: The view will be pretty remarkable,
too.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

It's uncanny how the dubious arguments against the bridge are so strikingly similar to those against rail in Honolulu today.

But what's also unmistakable is the degree of level-headed maturity in the Chronicle piece that's been missing in the all-too-often inflammatory and alarmist "reporting" and flat-out dishonest commentary here.

I don't buy into conspiracy theories, but it sure is hard to see a reasonable explanation for the near total lack of scrutiny of rail opponent motives (especially private transportation providers and mainland right-wing think tanks), the financial backers of the federal lawsuit against rail (has anyone ever even asked where the money is coming from to pay the pricey posse of lawyers?), or the complete lack of any details from Cayetano about any semblance of a viable alternative to rail (will he even go through the motions of proposing something?).

If some alleged alternative is actually unveiled, will it receive any real scrutiny, or will it just be the usual he-said, she-said nonsense, in which two sides of an argument are uncritically treated as equals, even if one side is completely preposterous?

You're asking questions the media should be asking. Thanks for adding to the list. I have to think the media leadership eventually will demand answers from the anti-rail candidate. And if they don't, we'll know there's a conspiracy afoot after all.

This Isn't Political

Yes2Rail is a blog about the Honolulu rail transit project, which has become the key issue in this year’s mayoral race. We comment on the candidates’ plans to address Oahu’s growing congestion problem and whether those plans could meet the need as well as elevated rail can and will. That’s not the same as criticizing the candidates, and we urge our readers to recognize the difference.

Another red-light runner meets Denver at-grade train, 6.13.12

Honolulu rail will be elevated, with zero possibility for accidents like those shown in this column in cities with at-grade systems. Visit our "aggregation site" for much more on why elevated rail is the only reasonable way to build Honolulu rail.

What riding the train will avoid

Bus Accident Aftermath on H-1

'Black Tuesday'--9/5/06 Crash Produced Nightmare Commute

Typical H-1 Traffic

About Me

After five years of active-duty service as an Army officer with duty stations in West Berlin and South Vietnam, reported and edited for newspapers and broadcast stations (including all-news radio) in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Honolulu. Covered Honolulu city government for the Honolulu Advertiser and KGMB-TV. Served on Congressman Cec Heftel's staff in Honolulu and Washington, then managed corporate communications and was Hawaiian Electric Company's spokesman for nearly a decade. A communications consultant for 19 years before moving to California in 2012. Launched, produced and hosted Hawaii Public Radio's "live" weekly "Energy Futures" public affairs program in 2009-10. Authored books on The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific ("Punchbowl" 1982) and on the decline of standard grammar in business and society ("Me and Him Are Killing English!" 2007). Now an information officer with the California Department of Water Resources.